Billy Bragg

Stephen William Bragg (born 20 December 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist.

His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes.

His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes.

Bragg was born in 1957 in Barking, Essex (which is now in Greater London) to Dennis Frederick Austin Bragg, an assistant sales manager to a Barking cap maker and milliner, and his wife Marie Victoria D'Urso, who was of Italian descent.

During the rise of punk rock and new wave in the late 1970s, Elvis Costello also served as an inspiration for Bragg.

Bragg's father died of lung cancer in 1976, and his mother died in 2011.

Bragg was educated at Northbury Junior School and Park Modern Secondary School (now part of Barking Abbey Secondary School) in Barking.

He failed his eleven-plus exam.

He developed an interest in poetry at the age of twelve, when his English teacher chose him to read a poem he had written for a homework assignment on a local radio station.

He put his energies into learning and practising the guitar with his next-door neighbour, Philip Wigg (Wiggy); some of their influences were the Faces, Small Faces and the Rolling Stones.

He was also exposed to folk and folk-rock music during his teenage years, citing Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan as early influences on his songwriting.

He was particularly influenced by the Jam, as well as the Clash, whom he'd seen play live in London in May 1977 on their White Riot Tour, and again at a Rock Against Racism carnival in April 1978, which he admits was the first time he really stepped into the world of music as it is used for political activism.

The experience of the gig and preceding march helped shape Bragg's left-wing politics, having previously "turned a blind eye" to casual racism.

In 1977, Bragg formed the punk rock/pub rock band Riff Raff with Wiggy.

The band decamped to rural Oundle in Northamptonshire in 1978 to record a series of singles (the first on independent Chiswick Records), which did not receive wide exposure.

After a period of gigging in Northamptonshire and London, they returned to Barking and split in 1980.

Taking a series of odd jobs including working at Guy Norris' record shop in Barking high street, Bragg became disillusioned with his stalled music career and in May 1981 joined the British Army as a recruit destined for the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars of the Royal Armoured Corps.

After completing three months' basic training, he bought himself out for £175 and returned home.

Bragg peroxided his hair to mark a new phase in his life and began performing frequent concerts and busking around London, playing solo with an electric guitar under the name Spy vs Spy (after the strip in Mad magazine).

His demo tape initially got no response from the record industry, but by pretending to be a television repair man, he got into the office of Charisma Records' A&R man Peter Jenner.

Jenner liked the tape, but the company was near bankruptcy and had no budget to sign new artists.

Bragg got an offer to record more demos for music publisher Chappell & Co., so Jenner agreed to release them as a record.

Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy (credited to Billy Bragg) was released in July 1983 by Charisma's new imprint, Utility.

Hearing DJ John Peel mention on-air that he was hungry, Bragg rushed to the BBC with a mushroom biryani, so Peel played The Milkman of Human Kindness from Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy albeit at the wrong speed (since the 12" LP was, unconventionally, cut to play at 45rpm). Peel insisted he would have played the song even without the biryani and later played it at the correct speed.

Within months Charisma had been taken over by Virgin Records and Jenner, who had been made redundant, became Bragg's manager.

Stiff Records' press officer Andy Macdonald – who was setting up his own record label, Go! Discs – received a copy of Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy.

He made Virgin an offer and the album was re-released on Go!

Discs in November 1983, at the fixed low price of £2.99.

Around this time, Andy Kershaw, an early supporter at Radio Aire in Leeds, was employed by Jenner as Bragg's tour manager.

In 1984, Bragg toured the UK supporting the Style Council.

Later the same year he released Brewing Up with Billy Bragg, a mixture of political songs (e.g. "It Says Here") and songs of unrequited love (e.g. "The Saturday Boy").

Though never released as a Bragg single, album track and live favourite "A New England", with an additional verse, became a Top 10 hit in the UK for Kirsty MacColl in January 1985.

Since MacColl's early death, Bragg always sings the extra verse live in her honour.

This was followed in 1985 by Between the Wars, an EP of political songs that included a cover version of Leon Rosselson's "The World Turned Upside Down".

The EP made the Top 20 of the UK Singles Chart and earned Bragg an appearance on Top of the Pops, singing the title track.

Bragg later collaborated with Rosselson on the song "Ballad of a Spycatcher".

In the same year, he embarked on his first tour of North America, with Wiggy as tour manager, supporting Echo & the Bunnymen.

The tour began in Washington, D.C., and ended in Los Angeles.

On the same trip, in New York, Bragg unveiled his "Portastack", a self-contained, mobile PA system weighing 35 lbs (designed for £500 by engineer Kenny Jones), the wearing of which became an archetypal image of the singer at that time.

(He later became a BBC DJ and TV presenter, and he and Bragg appeared in an episode of the BBC TV programme Great Journeys in 1989, in which they travelled the Silver Road from Potosí, Bolivia, to the Pacific coast at Arica, Chile.)